Assuring Consumer Confidence in Ethical Trade: Report Now Available

New report on unreliable ethical claims and their impact on consumer confusion

03 June 2010

The first report of the Ethical Trade Fact-finding Process (ETFP) is now available in three different languages. The ETFP was established to build consumer confidence in purchasing ethically traded products and services by recommending solutions to reduce the potential for consumer confusion caused by inaccurate and unreliable ‘ethical’ claims.

The report gives a summary of phase 1 of the project, including an executive summary of the findings of independent researchers from OneWorldStandards and Pacific Institute who conducted a thorough review of existing studies on the nature and extent of unreliable ethical claims and related impacts on consumer confusion.

The research findings were presented at a multi-stakeholder roundtable on 12-13 October 2009 at The Hague, the Netherlands. At the Assuring Consumer Confidence in Ethical Trade Multi-stakeholder Roundtable, 65 participants representing consumers, industry, government, NGOs, standards setters and research institutes from 35 countries convened to get a shared understanding of consumer attitudes to ethical trade and propose ways forward.

The ETFP is led by a Steering Group consisting of Consumers International (CI), the French National Standards Body AFNOR, the Brazilian National Standards Body ABNT, the ISEAL Alliance, Fairtrade Labelling Organizations FLO and the World Fair Trade Organization WFTO, with the Secretary of ISO COPOLCO as an observer. It was established following the workshop “Can consumers rely on fair trade claims?” held by the ISO Committee on consumer policy (ISO/COPOLCO) in 2007.